YAZU, Tottori Prefecture--A park where visitors can enjoy rides on a wide variety of miniature steam locomotives has opened here.

The Yazu town-run Yazu Mini SL Museum, nicknamed Yazupoppo, opened April 1 on the site of the Funaoka bamboo grove park to exhibit and maintain 17 steam trains that run on coal and other power sources.

Amuro Namie's concert that was scheduled to be held on October 21 at Torigin Bunka Kaikan Rika Hall has been cancelled due to an earthquake in the area. This was a part of her nationwide tour "namie amuro LIVE STYLE 2016-2017."

The sand dunes of Tottori Prefecture have been selected as a testing ground for a lunar rover being designed by a private sector Japanese team, in a worldwide competition to land a rover on the moon and send back high-quality imagery.

Talk about being taken for a ride.As part of efforts to raise the prefecture's profile with foreign visitors, three-hour customized taxi tours around the city are being offered at the bargain price of 1,000 yen ($8) per person.

Fish in a parfait? No thanks!But “chikuwa,” a tube-shaped product made from “surimi” fish paste and an ingredient in a dessert dish, seems to be tickling, or testing, the taste buds of some in this western city.

O-buroshiki, a popular confection from Tottori Prefecture, comes wrapped in a "furoshiki" cloth printed in a traditional "karakusa" (arabesque) pattern.O-buroshiki is a set of "mochi" (rice cakes) covered with "kinako" (sweetened soybean flour). People eat the cakes after topping them with syrup made from the Nijisseiki pear, a renowned local specialty.

Japanese baseball legend Ichiro Suzuki of the Major Leagues' Seattle Mariners has announced his retirement.The 45-year-old held a news conference after a game against the Oakland Athletics on Thursday in Tokyo.

A senior Japanese labor ministry official has been removed from his post, after being questioned by police in South Korea regarding a dispute he had with staff members at an airport.The ministry says a division chief got into trouble on Tuesday at Gimpo Airport in Seoul on his way home from a...more

Preparations are ramping up here in Japan as voters get set to cast their ballots in prefectural and municipal elections early next month.Eleven prefectures, across the nation, kicked off gubernatorial campaigns on Thursday. Candidates are expected to focus their platforms on how to revitalize...more

The third-gen Lexus IS has been on sale since 2013 and has benefited from few updates in the meantime. Our tester was an Atomic Silver IS 350 with all-wheel drive, the most expensive model in the lineup. A base IS 300 (formerly known as the 200t) starts at just under $40,000, though our...more

NHK has learned that Japanese Major Leaguer Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners has told team officials he intends to retire.The 45-year-old veteran is scheduled to hold a news conference after his team's match against the Oakland Athletics on Thursday in Tokyo.

Last week Microsoft brought its Xbox Live service to iOS and Android devices. This meant that developers who wanted to integrate Xbox Live into their iOS and Android games would be able to. There were rumors that this could be the start of something bigger and that it might even make its way onto...more

A senior Japanese labor ministry official has been removed from his post, after being questioned by police in South Korea regarding a dispute he had with staff members at an airport.The ministry says a division chief got into trouble on Tuesday at Gimpo Airport in Seoul on his way home from a...more

Candidates vying to become prefectural governors in Japan are hitting the streets in their campaigns before elections next month.It's part of unified local elections that are held across the country every four years. The prefectural and municipal polls this time are considered an opportunity...more

The company has since made some changes where in an announcement on its blog, Google has revealed that for Android users living in Europe, they will now be given a choice and asked which browser they want to use and even which search applications they might prefer, even if it does not necessarily...more